We had some good stuff with the non-Rider/Sentai stuff. Bikuu came out in 2015, but we didn't get a chance to watch/sub it till this year. Makai Retsuden was a big success in my book. Garo got an HD remake.

Oh, there was one Rider series that spoke to me. And that was Amazons. It was short and it was good for the most part.

But what is going on, Toei? You guys said this was a big anniversary year, but you had Ninninger, Jyuohger, Ghost, and Ex-Aid as your main series. What is going on? Are you in a slump? Are you running out of ideas? Did your good writers and directors move on to other projects?

Five years ago, you guys did Gokaiger. That was amazing. I'm not expecting that again any time soon, but Jyuohger is ridiculously mediocre. You guys haven't really hit any high notes in the last two years, and that's worrisome.

Maybe Ex-Aid will turn around, but that is one of the most poorest examples of a drama that I've ever seen. Like the production and directing is shockingly amateurish.

So here's to 2017. Let's hope KyuuRanger pulls out of the spiral. Let's hope Zero Dragon Blood continues to be good. And let's hope we get more good Garo series!

Well, I wouldn't be as negative as you, but I do agree that Ghost suffered from the same problem that Wizard and Makai no Hana had, which was too much filler. Well, they did put some plot in some of them, but it was essentially like stalling. Maybe Ghost should have been shorter.

I have no real complain about Jyuohger (too much filler maybe) and Ex-Aid (Level 1 designs), at least for now, but my main complain about Ninninger was that Kyuuemon's redemption wasn't foreshadowed at all, it was like something they pulled out of their asses at the last minute.

Each show is different, so everyone won't agree about which one is good and which one is bad. For example, I would put the Bikuu movie in the lowest rank of the Garo's shows and movies, Yami in the highest, and I liked the recent Star Wars movies (prequel trilogy, sequel trilogy, spin-off) more than the original. I'm not sure I would have stuck to Star Wars if I began with the original trilogy, but that's another matter entirely.

I'm honestly not sure what happened with Toei's anniversary shows. The only thing I saw that felt like an anniversary celebration was the Ichigou movie (which I liked, but I felt it had more Ghost moments than was necessary). Making the lack of celebration weirder was that Sentai had a truly massive 35th anniversary series, and I think 40 years should be a bigger year than 35 for such a show. Perhaps they pushed the anniversary titles for the extra views they'd cause?

For what it's worth, though, we got something a bit more befitting for an anniversary with the Ultraman X movie and Ultraman Orb (both celebrating 50 years). Neither one was perfect by any means (and there weren't any returning characters), but at least Orb felt like a consistent Ultra series in the way its immediate predecessors didn't. I've also heard that Orb's Origin Saga has its humor toned down a bit, so maybe we're getting back to Ultraman being good (at some point)?

Also, I just noticed that every toku series still being produced celebrated an anniversary last year. Maybe Toei put the anniversary out to compete with Ultraman's 50th?